Woman's Hospital opens new campus for business

BATON ROUGE, LA (NBC33) — The Woman's Hospital's new campus is officially open for business.

Ambulances transported patients from the old campus located off Goodwood to the brand new facility on Airline Highway and Stumberg Extension.

Hospital staffers started moving the patients at 6:00 Sunday morning. Patients rolled through the doors of the brand new 225 acre campus.

It took over 2 thousand Woman's and Acadian Ambulance workers and a whole lot of planning to make the transition happen.

Tricia Johnson, Senior Vice President Chief Nurse Executive, said, "It's been a great team project, and we've been working on it for over a year. I think our planning really paid off, because it's all coming together today."

"This whole process people have been making sure you're both ok, and everything is really comfortable," said patient Charlene Reams.

For Reams making the move came as a surprise. She gave birth to a baby boy Kirk on August 4 only to switch hospitals one day later.

"It was really good really exciting everybody made it a big adventure," said Reams.

Reams said she's glad to be in one of the new facilities large patient rooms.

"The last room was like three times smaller that this one," said Reams. "The room caters to the family to every body. It's big enough for everyone to come and see him."

Officials with woman's hospital say it took four years to go from construction to caring for patients in the new $327 million campus. Now officials say staff can go forward focusing on one thing caring for women's health.

"We do more deliveries that any other hospital in the state, so we are the experts," said Johnson.

"It's Woman's Hospital. It's the best to have your baby at everybody knows that," said Reams.